Images including digital photographs and computer drawings and graphics are widely available for use in computer drawings. While some images are in the public domain for download and use at will, other images are available for purchase. A relatively low resolution version of an image or vector drawing for sale is called a “comp”. Some comps also carry a watermark of an image sales company.
Following a preview by comp, a user wishing to purchase the image represented by the comp, needs to perform several actions before gaining access to the image file of the actual full resolution image or of a scalable vector image. To buy an image represented by a comp, typically, the user opens a web browser, navigates to a stock image site, logs on to the stock image site, selects the desired image for purchase, places the image in an online digital shopping cart, selects checkout, enters payment information for the image, and downloads the purchased image. Following the download, the user then opens a computer application program (e.g. a graphics or drawing computer program), opens their drawing, finds and imports the purchased file, manually replaces the comp with the imported image and reapplies any transformations that had been done to the comp to the imported image and then continues with their drawing.
The problem is that to replace a comp with the corresponding purchased asset by prior art methods, the user is forced to break their train of thought which disrupts their creative process.